JOAN LA BARBARA AND THE NEW WILDERNESS PRESERVATION BAND, 1973–74
Abstract: Joan La Barbara’s involvement in the New Wilderness Preservation Band is an often cited but virtually unknown period of her history. And yet it may have been one of the most genera- tive periods of her early career. Drawing upon archival documents, unreleased recordings and interviews, I narrate the history of the band, including La Barbara’s early use of extended vocal techni- ques. I argue that her work in the band reflected a mode of collab- orative authorship that is often lost in retellings of her history, and that her emergence in 1974 as a composer reflected a broader ten- sion around authorship in bands and ensembles during these years.
TEMPO 76 (301) 38–49
A feature on Ellen Fullman, who was named a 2020 Guggenheim Fellow, and who is sheltering in place with her Long String Instrument amidst the pandemic.
Full article here.
“‘Machine Fantasies into Human Events’: Reich and Technology in the 1970s,” in Rethinking Reich, edited by Sumanth Gopinath and Pwyll ap Siôn (Oxford University Press, 2019). Available here.
A feature on composer Annea Lockwood, previewing her Miller Theater Portrait Concert at Columbia University (November 8, 2019).
“Listening as Activism: The Sonic Meditations of Pauline Oliveros,” The New Yorker (Dec. 9, 2016).
“The World Catches Up to Iconoclastic Composer Julius Eastman,” Chicago Reader (Feb. 21, 2018).
A lengthy feature on Philip Glass’s first work for percussion ensemble, Perpetulum, including interviews with Third Coast Percussion (November 7, 2018).
“Hearing Disorientation in Steve Reich’s Drumming (1971),” Mitteilungen der Paul Sacher Stiftung 27 (April 2014): 36–40.
“Steve Reich at 80: Still Plugged In, Still Plugging Away,” The New York Times (September 30, 2016).
“Communal Experimentalism in the Sixties: The Pulsa Group,” NewMusicBox (May 24, 2016).